And so the adventure begins!

Date: 10/04/2011
Time: 1:15am (dont worry, I napped all afternoon, I am not sleep depriving myself for this blog)
Days abroad: 76
(Post #1 of 10 day vac trip)

Okay okay, I know you have all been DYING to hear about my little vacation I took…I have over 600 pictures…plus my friend Sara who went with me has over 600 pictures…so I did my best to pick some out to show a little bit of everything we did…just keep in mind, the pictures do no justice to the real thing…

Also, it is a long story (10 days is a lot! And I kept very careful notes so I don’t leave important things out) so I am going to post it in pieces…that way it isn’t like the second coming of the Iliad on my blog (not that I am going to write it in poem form or anything…and I am certainly no Homer, but the Iliad is REALLY long)…you dig?

Ok, good.

Here we go.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

My friend Sara and I left our house in Cape Town about 1-ish (I may or may not have skipped my last 2 classes…and my one Friday class. Woops, sorry Dad). Our flight left Cape Town at 3:45 and we landed at Windhoek International Airport in the bustling metropolis of Windhoek, Namibia at about 6-ish. South African Airways is the ONLY way to fly. They fed us twice—on a 2 hour flight. Let me tell you, landing at the airport in Windhoek is an experience all its own…as we were coming in, we could not see a building ANYWHERE. Or a runway, for that matter. They did have one though. One. So we landed in the middle of a huge thunderstorm and got off the plane in the middle of the runway slash parking lot slash cement pad outside the one and a half room building that made up the airport. Then we got our passport stamps (yay!) and our bags and went to find this shuttle that our travel agent told us about. Well, we walked outside and a thousand tourist-thirsty cab drivers saw us though “aha! Americans!” And came rushing over yelling and waving…I asked for the shuttle to the Safari Hotel in Windhoek and they all assured me that there was no shuttle but all the taxis were the same price…140 rand each.

Well, they had told us the shuttle was 120 rand but since there was no shuttle in sight…and no city in sight…we decided to go with a nice young taxi driver. The next hour was spent bumping over the worst “tarred” road ever…through what appeared to be the middle of nowhere…and the trip to the hotel involved a police blockade AND fording a creek…in a tiny tiny Toyota hatchback. I am not kidding, the road dipped down to allow the creek to cross the road. Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore.

Anyhoosit, we finally arrived at the Safari Hotel (alive…and with all our things) and the reception area was super fancy…I think I know where most of my money for this trip went…the one night they put us in a fancy hotel.

We met our driver, Conrad and our tour guide, Sarah—both are originally from South Africa; and two Swedish cousins, Martin and Isabelle (Bella), they were finishing an AROUND THE WORLD TRIP with our little African tour. Awesome? Yes. We had our briefing about the trip, signed our wavers, checked into our room and reassembled in the parking lot at 730 to go to dinner. We met the rest of our group…they had been traveling for 10 days already, they started in Cape Town. Leo and Kate from Winnipeg; Alice from Pennsylvania; Lee and David, Aman, and Gareth all from England (though only Lee and David were travelling together, Aman and Gareth had signed up on their own); Aviva and Aneta from Toronto; Mark from Switzerland; and Jennah from Australia…a nice little diverse group.

We all piled into this beauty:

This picture was actually taken on the last day of our trip...but the truck looked relatively the same at both ends of the tour :)
(this is actually where we would spend the majority of our next 10 days) and bumped down into Windhoek to a little restaurant called Joe’s Beerhouse…this was unlike any beerhouse I had ever been to, since the menu included zebra and kudu steaks (I kept it safe with beef…no zebra meat for me please, thanks).

Something you should all know if you plan in traveling in southern Africa: service is SLOW. Like really slow….anyways, we got back to the hotel at 11ish...I had a moment of panic about the boot prints all over the ceiling of the bathroom (Namibia has the densest population of scorpions in the world…I do not know if scorpions can climb on ceilings but the boot prints indicated that SOMETHING unwanted can…) oh, also, the bathroom door stuck closed so if you shut it—which you had to do to get in the shower—so it is fortunate that there were two of us in the room because someone had to give it a swift kick from the outside to let you out. Now imagine if I got stuck in there with whatever the person before was chasing with a boot! I would’ve had a heart attack. For sure.

We had to be up at 6, breakfast at 6:30, and on the road by 7 am…which is an hour I rarely see…I hardly slept at all, partially in anticipation of the next 9 days and partially in fear of the boot print causing creature…

Friday, March 25, 2011

Up before the sun…which is not something I do well, haha. Breakfast was included at the hotel and it was a HUGE beautiful spread, which I could hardly appreciate because I could barely open my eyes. We all piled into the truck and hit the road. This was the longest drive we did during our 10-day stint on the tour. 8 long hours. We crossed the border into Botswana (another 2 stamps! Yaaay!) and kept driving and driving. This gave us plenty of time to get to know our new travelling companions…alongside the roads we saw baboons, ostrich, warthogs, donkeys, donkeys, cows, donkeys, cows, oh and more donkeys. Apparently Botswana has all of these wild donkeys and cows that just hang out on the roads. Several times Conrad had to hit the brakes and lay on the hooter (that’s what South Africans call a horn…I LOVE it. I think EVERYONE should call them hooters, hahahaha) because there were donkeys too lazy to get out of the road.

At one point, the largest dead moth I have ever seen blew out from underneath one of the seats and Sara (the girl I was traveling with) goes “ew, that’s a big bug” and Aman said (this is my favorite thing anyone said all week) “Oh don’t worry, they get much bigger. And more colorful.” Bahahahahahaha. At this point I am thinking holy moly, what have I gotten myself into? Because I HATE bugs. With a passion.

Anyway, we finally arrived at our campground…a lovely little place in the middle of the Kalahari Desert…which, funnily enough, looks like this:

At the end of the rainy season…not too desert-y, huh?
The campground was quite nice, as far as campgrounds go, and we could “upgrade” for 5 US dollars to a grass hut…Sara and I opted for the tent though, the huts were definitely not sealed against bugs. And the tents had zippers. There is a tribe of bushmen who live off the land in the Kalahari and for 10 US dollars we could go on a walk with them and learn about the plants. Instead of paying, I took this picture:
This is the bushmen and one of the upgrade huts…
And went on my own nature walk with David, Lee, Sara, and Aviva. We found so many giant giant black beetles…and there were tons of termite hills that were a good deal taller than myself. And all kinds of desert bugs...my favorite.

We walked back to camp at 7 for dinner time…we had shepherds pie and squash. Funny thing, I love squash! Who knew? I always thought I didn’t like it…but in fact, it is delicious…I have seriously been missing out! After dinner I held the light for the people on kitchen duty. Big mistake. Point of information: if you are camping in the Kalahari Desert and you don’t like bus, don’t be the good Samaritan who stands in the dark HOLDING THE LIGHT. All kinds of creepy crawlies fly directly at you. HUGE HUGE HUGE bugs…worthy of being mounted in the Smithsonian. Terrible.

I was exhausted after my sleepless night in Namibia so we stayed up and talked for a little whole but went to bed very early.

That brings us to day three…I am going to stop for the night because it is late…I promise, the animals get bigger (including, but not limited to, the bugs) and the pictures get much more exciting as the trip continues…stay tuned

Love